


Memory Is A Monster

by ScratchTheMaven



Category: Marvel, Marvel 616
Genre: Angst, Gen, brainwashed assassin problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-03
Updated: 2013-07-03
Packaged: 2017-12-17 13:28:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/868086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScratchTheMaven/pseuds/ScratchTheMaven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn’t blame Steve.  Or at least he tells himself this....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memory Is A Monster

**Author's Note:**

> Just a drabble post Captain America #14, volume 5. The title is from a John Irving quote I found that I thought was fitting.

He sits there in the abandoned dirt and dried grass of Fort Lehigh, head in his heads, fingers gripping too-long hair as his brain swims and his stomach churns. He wants to scream. Maybe even should scream (after all, the place he could once vaguely associate with the word ‘home’ is desolate, empty – no one to hear him). He should be allowed that, right? One moment of complete, familiar abandon in reaction to years – _no_ – decades of control. Still, he stays silent, even though every image burning behind his eyelids gives him every reason not to.

He doesn’t blame Steve. Or at least he tells himself this (an endless mantra – he doesn’t, he doesn’t, he doesn’t, he doesn’t, he _can’t_ ) as he tries to grasp at older memories, before the fall, before the war. He can’t fault Steve for wanting that back (he can), can’t fault him for doing what he thought was the right thing (he won’t). A part of him feels guilty for leaving him at the warehouse, knows what it must look like. But he can’t bear the idea of being around Steve right now. Not after he’d just tried to kill him. Not when the impulse and the thought to do so were so clear, so recently, in his mind.

_"You don't know me!"_

_"And you don't know how much I wish that was **true**."_

Not when he still had Steve's damning words echoing in his brain.

_"Remember who you are."_

(And here he was)

Besides...Steve had his own problems to deal with (he refused to acknowledge that one of those problems was probably still _him_ ), he didn’t need _his_ added to the mix.

Looking around at the weathered lodges of the camp, it was hard to imagine that he used to peddle cigarettes, magazines, and stolen alcohol to (soon-to-be) soldiers for cash, favors, or just to give himself some sense of belonging. He’d been so young - cocky and wearing false bravado like an armor until it gradually chipped away. 

He can’t help but think that the state of the place is somehow fitting.


End file.
